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LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS AMBASSADORS OF PRESENT AND ACCEDING EU MEMBER STATES

On 8 March, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antanas Valionis met with the ambassadors of present and future EU member states residing in Lithuania to discuss the anti-Semitic articles in the daily “Respublika”. As Antanas Valionis pointed out at the meeting, such articles make to reconsider the policy of the Holocaust education and commemoration and to discuss the possible ways of improvement and development of the existing programmes, so that anti-Semitic ideas would not find the place in the country’s society and would be firmly rejected by all the citizens. “The articles were condemned by the Lithuanian Government, public and non-governmental organisations, intellectuals and mass media,” the Minister underlined. According to him, the Lithuanian authorities denounce any incitement of national, racial, religious or social hatred, violence and discrimination. The diplomats participating at the meeting pointed out that the manifestations of anti-Semitism and xenophobia also occurred in other countries, thus the reaction against them is a concern of all the European Union. The Minister assured that Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintained an active dialogue with the local Jewish community with the help of informal discussions and meetings on all important issues. “At the Ministry’s initiative, an inter-agency working group was recently set up in order to improve coordination of the Holocaust education and commemoration-related matters,” Antanas Valionis indicated at the meeting with the ambassadors. The reaction of the Lithuanian highest authorities against the anti-Semitism was discussed during the meeting between Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister Justas Vincas Paleckis and US Ambassador in Vilnius Stephen Mull on 8 March. On the same day, a meeting between Israel’s Ambassador to Lithuania Gary Koren and Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament Artūras Paulauskas took place.